Question self explained really in the title! Some mirrors in my house make my skin look great, but when i go to my bathroom (huge mirror) the size of me, it looks kind of bad. So im confused to what my real image actually is.

Do mirrors make you're skin worse than it truly is? Or is that really you?

I think lighting has more to do with it. Unfortunatly the more like the more you can see imperfection, it makes me sad.. my face is so ugly with random cysts and red marks from old ones. I hate looking in the mirror. I know what you are saying though. some mirrors I feel like I look fine. but others IM like AH!!

So the same, its absolutely stupid. Here in my house at uni i usually turn the lights off or close the curtains and im really happy, going back home the lighting is such (yellow/orange ish) in bedroom that my skin looks flawless (well kinda) and then in the bathroom its also good! I guess its just soft lighting and certain colours! Stupid!

The whiter the light (ex. flourescent bulbs), the worse your skin looks because it is so bright that is shows all of your imperfections. Softer light, like lightbulbs, aren't bright enough to show all of your imperfections and also give you a yellowish tone to your skin so that you do not look as pale. I put my makeup on in the morning using a makeup mirror set to a very bright white light. It is scary to look at, but by putting it on that way, you are sure to be covering up all of your imperfections. If you look good in the white light after application, you know you will be looking good anywhere you go that day!

I think often what we see in the mirror is much worse than others see.

For a start we're examining our face from about 5 inches away!! And usually theres some sort of bright light shining right at our face. In normal interactions with people we NEVER have them looking at us like we look at ourselves.

I have a colleague who has GREAT skin. I always look and think how lucky he is considering the crap he eats. So, one day, we was at the computer and was showing me something so I learned over him and was right over his forehead and in the light from the computer noticed his had SO many pimples and bumps on his forehead that I had NEVER noticed when at normal distances from him.

So, whatever you see in the mirror its unlikely that ANYONE ELSE will ever see,

I wish that were true, but I tend to disagree. When we look in the mirror, it automatically makes us look TWICE as good in real life because the light needs to travel from your eye to the mirror and then back again. So if I'm standing half a metre away from the mirror, that's what people would see from twice that distance, or 1 metre.

Given that mose people would see you at half or 1 metre away from you or often much closer, the truly accurate standing position is half a metre at most away from a mirror, and more likely 25cm.

That said, mirrors can make you look good if the light is not perfect. So in the real world that is why I am always completely conscious of the direction the light is coming in and always sit in a position so as to minimise the light coming directly onto my face. Although it was funny though when I got my job a few years ago as an attorney, the two interviewers were sitting in a scyscraper office away from the light pounding in, and I was forced to sit opposite them. I kept on thinking "I can only imagine what crap my face looks like in that light. I still got the job so they mustn't have been too worried about my skin.

AA

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And I shall be clothed again with my SKIN, and in my flesh I shall see God." [Job 19:25]

Having pale skin and not looking that bad with the yellow or orangish bulbs, I have to say that those flourescent like tubes in bathrooms, classrooms, and the long flourescents I use for my reptiles uv lighting really do make me look worse. Also I must add that I have some darker skinned friends and black friends that we have all tested this before. The results came the same, when we are looking at eachother we mainly see a few pimples or so and thats it. But when we see eachother with the flourescent reptile tube (same look as bathroom flourescents) we see many more zits big and small...

Its completely the same thing for me too! Those orange lightings are great when you want to not see those pimples and imperfections. Those places with white flourescent bulbs is definitely no a NO NO when u want to have a date.